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... to psychotherapeutic session in order to solve her problem. However, the matter at issue is that she hates her job. Seligman offers to analyze this situation and make an effort to find out the waitress strong sides.
For example, it can be communication with other people, or something else. In such a way, the waitress, with the help of professional psychologist has a chance to reexamine her professional activity. Instead of thinking about her job as a necessity to carry tea trays and salvers, she, probably, will start treating her job as psychological mission aimed to make her clients happier. No doubts, she will succeed, because communication with other people is one of her strongest sides. Similar to scientific psychology, psychotherapy also works with human weaknesses. Naturally, it is relatively problematic both for the customers and psychotherapists.
Yet, the psychology should also be based on human strengths. In case you cooperate with people on the basis of the things they do well, they will be happy to speak about it. It implies not only the technique of making contacts with the clients (and people, in general) but also the independent therapeutic strategy. It is possible to make an assumption that in case the individual dedicates his life to development of his positive personal traits, his problems and negative traits will disappear, or at least will be of a lesser importance. Positive psychology is not the independent section of the modern psychology, but rather a certain kind of movement that to cover fully the great number of modern psychological researches and practices. It is very interesting that the researches are conducted simultaneously on several levels psychological, personal, biological, the level of interactions between people, institutional, cultural and global levels, to mention a few.
The psychologists predominantly conduct empirical researches on diverse subject areas, such as What is happy Christmas? , What human traits are the positive alternative to greediness? , Is it possible to protect people against depression and feeling of loneliness with the help of positive emotions? , Can the persons mood influence the functioning of his immune system? , What is the specifics of the models of positive identity development? , and What are the central elements of child well-being - the fundamental strengths that support children's early health and development and sustain positive development throughout the life course? (Bornstein, 2003), to mention a few. Such acute issues like globalization, modern economic and political life also have been a central preoccupation of positive psychology in the 21 th century. Nowadays positive psychology is a dynamic discipline that embraces scientific-psychological and humanistic-psychological tendencies. The first attempts to make a synthesis of these two completely different directions were first made in the beginning of the 20 th century. For example, classical behaviorism appeared as a response on the drawbacks of introspective method.
The behaviorists considered that it is possible to replace negative traits of character by the positive ones. However, this branch of psychology was subject to severe criticism from the side of younger psychologists. From the viewpoint of classical psychoanalysis, the individual is negative by his nature. Unconscious part of the human psychics prevents the individual from searches for happiness. To a certain extent it may be said that Freud developed the concepts of negative psychology (Rich, 2003), while Neo-Freudian psychologists placed high emphasis on positive human nature. Both classical psychoanalysis and classical behaviorism were based on assumption that people are influenced by such fundamental motivational factors like aggression, egoism and aspiration for simple pleasures.
From this standpoint any kind of social interactions are possible through the instrumentality of the persons control over emotions. Social Darwinist idea of survival of the fittest (the opposite point of view) was supported by the recent psychological researches (Buss, 2000), according to which socialization and the ability to live in groups are the adaptive features of the fittest. Positive emotions, along with the negative, are the inherent part of human nature stipulated evolutionary. Therefore, the individuals are unable to completely eliminate negative emotions. Inverse, they need to have more positive emotions in order to replace the negative ones. Thus, for example, phobias (from the evolutionary point of view) are psychological mechanisms that allow avoiding potentially dangerous situations.
Some phobias can be cures, however, in case the person suffers from agoraphobia (the fear of open space and public places), psychotherapy is able to help him. At the same time, psychotherapeutic techniques are unable to make the person like walking down the crowded streets or supermarkets (Bornstein, 2003). Humanistic psychology appeared as a science set off against positivism, scientist movement in psychology both in form of behaviorism and psychoanalysis. At the same time, humanistic psychology was influenced by counterculture that resulted in aspiration for self-realization with no obligations, duties or social commitment, in belief in the persons capacity for self-perfection, in mistrust in economic and political methods of improvement of the persons welfare, in importance of self-realization of the personality, hedonism, irrationality, and occultism. The very concept of humanistic psychology contains contraposition to scientific psychology, where the preference is given to personal experience, sensory sphere of life, social commitment, and culture. Humanistic psychology sprang from therapeutic practice oriented to the personality growth, self-actualization, and development of human potential.
Positive psychology has much in common with humanistic psychology as it contains infinitely many positive psychological moments (for example, the concept that the person is good by nature). So, both positive and humanistic psychology place emphasis not on pathologies and malfunctions, but on health and well-being. Yet, there are several inherent differences between the two directions. Some historians, who examine positive psychology, point to the following sequence of the revolutionary ideas: humanistic psychology challenge to psychoanalysis and behaviorism; positive psychology challenge to humanistic psychology in the sense of its scientific character.
Positive psychology unites the followers, who represent a great diversity of the fields of psychological knowledge and practices (including postmodernists approach). They are united by the positive approach, positive outlook, and positive interpretation of the persons nature, activity, his outlook on life, world, and people around him. In such a way, it is possible to make an assumption that positive psychology, being the indicator of integration tendencies in the modern psychological science and practice, and striving to increase the importance and value of psychological science in the society's opinion, appeared not only in the context of predetermined historical and scientific circumstances, but also within the context of specific historical and cultural circumstances. Positive psychology requires an in-depth definition of the positiveness as properly valid psychological context in order to foster its future development.
Theoretical groundwork in psychology may be of a certain use. In particular, it is necessary to reexamine the ideas of August Kong, taking into account the fact that he used positiveness not only as a properly valid scientific principle, but also as a peculiar moral ideal. In addition to that, Norman Vincent Pills studies of positive thinking may be also of a certain interest (Shapiro 2004). Positive psychology is finding ever-widening application in the modern psychological community. Despite its relatively young age, it is very popular among the researchers, practitioners, and pedagogues (especially young people). Positive psychology has great impact on different spheres of life, such as education, healthcare, child development, public relations, to mention a few.
It shows the importance of such emotions like hope, joy, happiness, humor, admiration, pride, and commitment. Positive psychology should be of a primary importance, as it provides the knowledge of being positive. Positive emotions have an important influence on professional activity. When the person experiences positive emotions, he becomes more flexible and sensible. A positive person is open to new possibilities. He is able to adjust himself according to the demands from his environment, and, even more, he is able to treat challenges and hardships as new possibilities but not the threats and troubles.
Positive emotions allow the person to find creative approaches to problem solving. Positive psychology is conductive to the open style of communication, thus making the negotiations more effective. At the same time, positiveness allows the person having control over his own actions, to be completely devoted to his work. Obviously, positive emotions do more good than harm. These pluses fall beyond the scope of the so-called pro social behavior, cooperation and altruism. Positive atmosphere, where the people feel positive emotions, is conductive to the persons success.
To put it differently, the psychologists are able to develop the desire to help each other and to work at full blast. In summary it may be said that positive psychology offers promise as one of the most interesting scientific studies that examine positive potential of an individual, strengths and virtues that enable both the individuals and societies to thrive. Despite some criticism, positive psychology is very important, as it explores strong sides of the individual and focuses attention on positiveness, concepts of health and happiness. References Bornstein, M. H. (2003). Well-Being: Positive Development across the Life Course.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Brendtro, L. K. (2005). The Circle of Courage and Positive Psychology.
Reclaiming Children and Youth, 14. Emmons, R. A. , McCullough, M. E. (2003).
Positive Psychology. 2 (84). Haworth, J. T. (2004). Work and Leisure.
Veal: Routledge. Lopez, S. J. (2002). Handbook of Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lutz, A. , Greischar, L. L. (2004). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. 101. Rich, G. J. (2003). The Positive Psychology of Youth and Adolescence.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 32. Seligman, M. E. P. , Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000).
Positive Psychology: An Introduction. American Psychologist, 1 (55).
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